Fewer Maryland Students Learning Arithmetic and Algebra
1.7.10 – Jerome Dancis, Associate Professor Emeritus – The following data describes students who entered college at least minimally prepared in Math — not requiring remedial Algebra or Arithmetic — vs. those who needed remedial Arithmetic or remedial Algebra before being allowed to take college level math courses.
Fewer Maryland Students Learning Arithmetic and Algebra
By Jerome Dancis, Associate Professor Emeritus, Math Dept., Univ. of MD Analysis based on data by Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC) Student Outcome and Achievement Report (SOAR).
The following data describes students who entered college at least minimally prepared in Math — not requiring remedial Algebra or Arithmetic — vs. those who needed remedial Arithmetic or remedial Algebra before being allowed to take college level math courses. In reviewing the numbers, they reveal that the situation went from bad in 1998 to worse in 2005 and 2006 for all ethnic groups, but there were more dramatic downturns for African-American and Hispanic students.
Caveat. This particular data counted only students who graduated from Maryland (MD) high schools in 1998, 2005 and 2006 then entered a college in Maryland the same year. (Not counted were graduates who went to collegeoutside MD or did not go to college the same year.)
Decline in Percent of MD HS Graduates Minimally Ready for College Math when they entered a College in MD.
1998 2005 2006
Whites 67% 60% 58%
African-Americans 44% 33% 36%
Asian-Americans 79% 74% 76%
Hispanics 56% 42% 43%
These dramatic downturns were predicted by the College Professors’ “Petition to Upgrade Maryland’s Mathematics Standards” at
www.math.umd.edu/~jnd/subhome/petition_w_sign.htm.
A likely cause for the downturn: Under the specter of the MD School Assessments (MSAs) and High School Assessments (HSAs), school
administrators have been organizing the instructional programs around the MSAs and MD (HSAs), that is, bending the instructional programs out of shape to order to teach to the state tests. But, the MD Math exams emphasize superficial statistics and has students rely on calculators. It avoids the arithmetic and arithmetic-based Algebra, such as knowing that 3x + 2x = 5x, knowledge students will need in college.
High school Algebra I used to be quite similar to college Algebra. No more! As Dr. Ronald Williams, (a vice president of the College Board and past President, Prince George’s Community College, (in MD)) noted: There is a chasm between what students are learning in high school math and what colleges demand (arithmetic and arithmetic-based Algebra).
Having students rely on calculators is a very good strategy if the only goal is to have students pass the MD HSA on Algebra, which has students using calculators and avoiding Arithmetic. But this is setting-up graduates to take remedial arithmetic and remedial arithmetic-based Algebra I in college. “It’s the math that’s killing us,’’ noted Donna McKusik, the senior director of remedial education at the Community College of Baltimore County. More than one in four college remedial students work on elementary and middle school arithmetic. Math is where students often lose confidence and give up on Community College. (The New York Times, September 2, 2006) It is this necessary Arithmetic, which has been downplayed by the MD MSAs on Math and which is neither reviewed nor reinforced by the MD HSA on Algebra.
College math professors are distressed by the low level of understanding of arithmetic and arithmetic-based Algebra by masses of college students. This is why the MD/DC/VA SECTION of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) has broken tradition by issuing its first statement ever on the College Professors’ Concerns on Mathematical Preparedness of Incoming College Freshmen. I paraphrase its key recommendation as: Students should be able to perform basic calculations in Arithmetic and in Algebra, without the assistance of calculators. Thus, the Algebra I, needed for college, is largely excluded from the MD HSA on Algebra.
Maryland, DC and 44 other states, have adopted the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics’ (NCTM) curriculum, which marginalizes arithmetic. This is increasingly setting up many graduates for remedial arithmetic and remedial Algebra when they enter college. To reverse this trend will require drastic changes in the MD state Math exams, namely, realigning the curriculum with college Algebra.
At the high end: “[From 1985–2005] Fall term enrollments in Calculus II dropped from 115,000 to 104,000 [at U.S. colleges].” Calculus II is
required for a college degree in engineering. [See: “Is the sky still falling?” At www.ams.org/notices/200901/tx090100020p.pdf]
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Related Data from MD. From 1998 to 2005, the number of white graduates increased by 11% (from 14,473 to 16,127), but the number who were [at least] minimally ready for college Math decreased (from 9703 to 9619).
Similarly, from 1998 to 2005, the number of African-American graduates who were minimally ready for college Math went down in spite of increased college enrollments of females by 21% and males by 31%.
Our children deserve a better instructional program.
Notes: Other 1998 – 2006 Math trend data Table 17 (Page 25) of the 2009 SOAR report is at www.mhec.state.md.us/publications/research/AnnualReports/2008SOAR.pdfhttp://faculty.salisbury.edu/~despickler/mddcvamaa/HS_students.html
The MAA is the Mathematical Association of America, the professional association for college math instruction, of college professors of mathematics. Also see my reports “Comments on Statement on Mathematical Preparedness” as well as my “Notes on Remedial Math Problem” and ”A Review of the Report of the Task Force on the Education of Maryland’s African-American Males — Useful Initiatives that should have been included” on my Math Education Website: www.math.umd.edu\~jnd “College Professors’ Concerns on Mathematical Preparedness of Incoming College Freshmen” is at [2008]
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Comments
I will continue to state the obvious.
I am in California, teaching high school. Once upon a time we offered pre-algebra to 9th graders who were not ready for algebra. We also offered a 2-year algebra 1 course we called Algebra A and Algebra B. This allowed teachers more time to focus on TEACHING. Less capable students were often able to succeed in this course. Oh, and we offered a non-college prep high school algebra class, which was watered down, but also appropriate for students who have lower skills and are not bound for 4-year universities.
Today we place ALL 8th graders in algebra 1. Most retake algebra 1 in 9th grade and many fail again. There is no 2 year course, there are no non-college prep classes. There is no pre-algebra. Everyone has a right to earn algebra in 8th grade, ready or not.
As the bottom 50% of our students struggle mightily to learn algebra, our teachers are pressured to pass students, so the course has been tailored to the STAR test, and watered down (dumbed down).
When students MUST pass 2 years of math to graduate, but cannot, you gradually make the course easier and easier to accomplish this goal, for too many doors are closed to students who don't hold high school diplomas (even most branches of the military won't touch them).
This is an enormously destructive educational movement. Our state colleges are being forced to cut back 20% on student enrollment, yet we are admonished to prepare all students for college, when the seats in our colleges are not there.
The high paying jobs we promise our youth are also simply not there and never were. Something like 26% of the jobs in our economy require college degrees. Increasingly more and more relatively unchallenging jobs are held by people who graduated from college simply because the pool of college graduates is greater than the pool of appropriate jobs.
As college grows more and more expensive, many students graduate with college debt in the $thousands and no good job prospects or way to repay the debt.
This is madness and it is hurting all of our students: the genuinely college bound and those who are not and never were.
A good education is not one size fits all. Everyone in America should be writing letters of concern to their congressperson and senators informing them that this madness will continue to devalue American education and the preparedness of the American worker.
We must truly differentiate and this is not accomplished by tossing everyone in the same classroom and demanding the teacher attempt to differentiate instruction to a wide range of skill level every day for every lesson. The teacher's teaching time is limited to the hours and minutes within a school day and learning is facilitated by good instruction.
ALL students benefit from good instruction, not a few minutes of direction giving here and there because the teacher is trying to teach several ability levels within one class period (55 minutes) every day.
Had you told me 20 years ago we were headed for this, I surely would have insisted no one would ever fall for such insanity. Now it seems our entire nation has fallen down the rabbit hole and most of the Joe Sixpacks, including many readers of this page, are applauding.
Incredible, who would have believed it!
I totally agree with 'California's' observations. I taught 7/8/or 9th grade General Math for almost 15 years, until the early '90's when the state of Virginia eliminated the title of 'General Math' from the curriculum, and all courses started moving backwards toward 6th-grade. My GM classes all turned into Pre-Algebra (composed of mostly general math and some algebra) class, and all 8th graders in Va. are now expected to complete Algebra.
I said in the early '90s "no way" because I knew just how remedial my Remedial Math (title also eliminated by the state in the '90's)students in 7th and 8th and knew there was no way they could handle Algebra in 8th grade.
On the other end, my 8th grade Algebra and Geometry students of the late 1990's (courses moved up from the 9th) were excellent at algebra, but asked for a review of fractions before taking the state test (SOL) that was required at the end of the year for either their algebra or geometry course. These students had not performed basic math skills since they were in the 6th grade; the geometry students had been placed into Algebra in the 7th grade, and they really wanted a review of fractions and dividing by a decimal(and this was BEFORE the regular daily use of the TI-83)!!
Moving the high school level courses up to the middle school has been detremental to the students knowledge of good ol' basic arithmetic. As a student, I had practice in arithmetic through the 8th grade; my son only worked basic arithmetic problems through the 6th.
And now as a college teacher (since 2002)I have seen the arithmetic ability of our freshmen steadily decline. They not only do not know how to perform operations with fractions, I had Elem. Educ. major this past fall who did not know her multiplication tables. Many could not do the simple algebra problems that were in my Geometry course.
So because of the state SOL requirements, students learn a broad amount of material, but nothing is learned in depth…and only long enough to pass the test/course and that is with the use of a calculator.
We are having to alter the way the College Algebra class is taught; more remediation, labs, tutoring, etc. that never was needed before.